


Gladiator's Fury

by Witchofnovember



Category: Pitch Black (2000)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-02
Updated: 2012-09-12
Packaged: 2017-11-04 17:19:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/396281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Witchofnovember/pseuds/Witchofnovember
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After leaving Jack and the Imam, Riddick is captured and dragooned into taking part in blood games. Paired with one of the women provided for the fighters' amusement, he  plots their escape... and maybe some revenge.</p><p>Warning for rape, forced prostitution, violence, suicide, drug use, language, misogyny and death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First impressions are everything

Riddick lifted his head at the sound of someone being hauled down the hall by force. Someone female and from the Avaiki system by the accent. He admired the way she could call somebody a shit eater without saying "shit". A man yelped in pain and a meaty smack put an end to the cussing. 

He rolled to his feet and stretched. He was alone in a cell that in a normal slam would have housed four men, six if business was good. It boasted the unheard of luxury of a separate toilet; with a shower. No taking a leak or dump out in the open, no fighting a crowd for a place under the hot water or just to be left alone. Not that most cons challenged him but there was always some nut job that would try- once.

Hell, before he tried to escape and killed a guard, it had even boasted real furniture. Now he was down to a mattress on the concrete floor and some blankets to keep out the chill seeping through the steel walls. Even that was better than Butcher's Bay where they just threw you in and expected you to fight for such things. 

But this wasn't a slam. They weren't making their money warehousing human refuse, even though most of the men here either came from or should be on their way to a no-daylight slam so deep the cockroaches got the bends. 

Gladiatorial games, blood sports, human dog fights and Riddick was one of the dogs whether he wanted to be or not. And not all the doors on the tier were locked. 

His was and the fucker with the key just pulled back the door and walked right in.

"You did well today, Riddick," The General Manager stood in the slash of light from the hall. 

Riddick resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. Boredom had driven him to take part in the sparring. The "Trainer" put him with a punk. Riddick toyed with him for a bit before putting him on the mat. If he'd realized that's what it took to get privileges back he would have done it weeks before. 

"Keep it up and you'll be ready for the arena and then-" he scanned the cell, the bare walls and nonexistent furnishing. "Until then you've earned a little treat." He stepped aside as the guards shoved a woman bodily into the room.

"Pus and puke eaters." She hit the floor on her shoulder and rolled up to a crouch but didn't try to get up right away. Not while the guards had their cattle prods out. 

One of the guard, the one that wasn't bleeding, smacked her. "You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"I'll kiss yours." She ducked another blow.

The GM backed out with a slight smile. "You said you liked a woman with some fight in her. Break her in and she's yours."

"I know what I said..." he trailed off as she turned and tried to incinerate him with her mind. 

"If you don't want her we can take her to Monroe," the GM shrugged as if it didn't matter. 

"No, I got it." Riddick had seen her at dinner, glaring at the world; one eye hazel brown, the other half shut from a hell of a black eye. Maybe without the bruises and the attitude she would pass for comely, nothing amazing. But when she dished out his mashed veg she had made eye contact and didn't flinch away from his strange, silvered eyes. She looked into his eyes and not at them. There was something in that steady gaze that made his cock twitch. 

Since then the guards had tuned her up again. Her nose was broken and there was fresh blood seeping from her lower lip. Looking at her now something more murderous twitched, but he wasn't ready to tempt the guards and their cattle prods either.

"Have fun, Riddick," The GM smiled smugly and waved the guards out of the cell. 

She waited until the door shut before launched herself at him. She attacked with more skill and ferocity than he expected. He blocked the strike to his eyes and she aimed a kick, not to his balls, he was expecting that, but to the base of his knee. The side of her shoe scraped down his shin. He had to hop to avoid getting his instep stamped on. He blocked a jab and another kick. Then tangled her up in his arms and tripped her face first onto his pallet. He landed on top of her.

"GET. OFF. ME." She delivered each word with an elbow to his ribs. 

"They expect me to fuck you in to submission," His mouth was centimeters from her ear, his nose buried in her hair. Under the smell of institutional soap was the hint of coconuts. "They expect me to fuck you until you bleed, fuck you until you can't remember a time when I wasn't. Until you liked it."

She froze under him. 

He whispered into her ear. "Or together we can get out of this fucking hole."

She bucked sideways and almost got out from under him. It was enough for him to let her turn over. "They're watching," he mouthed and flicked his eyes up. He let go of one wrist and she raked her nails across the side of his face. 

"You don't have to be that realistic," he muttered as he fought to get that hand back under control, to pin both wrists in one hand so he could unfasten and shove his pants down. 

Let them watch his ass bounce if it turned them on, from where the cameras were they shouldn't be able to tell he was too far down her body to do her any harm. 

She tried to bite and when that didn't work she screamed almost directly in his ear. That left him half dazed. She called him a maggot, a liver fluke and accused him of giving his mother grum worms, what ever they were. By then he figured he would have gotten off and rolled off her. 

"Go get cleaned up." He stood up and tucked his cock back in his pants. "There's a shower in the head." 

She skittered around the edge of the room, tugging at her skirt and holding her blouse shut. He caught a glimpse of firm and seamlessly tanned breast as she went passed. 

"Hey Snout!" Riddick pounded on the door until the security grill opened. 

"What?" The screw's eyes were glazed, probably from watching the show.

"Get her some new clothes and an ice pack." In a real prison the guard would have slammed the grill shut and come back with friends to realign Rididck's attitude.

But this wasn't a real prison, and Riddick was a potential money maker. Sickos would pay and pay big to see brutal men, murderers kill each other. Riddick was the hardest of the hard men they'd gathered up. They'd give him what he wanted, up to a point.

The grill started to shut, "One more thing." Time to see where that point was.

"Yeah?"

"Tell the GM I want the camera gone. This is the last time you pigs jerk off over my woman. Got that?" Riddick turned his back on the door.

A woman, in his cell, his woman or at least his responsibility. He had swore off responsibility after they court martialed him. After that, why bother caring? But then the Hunter Gratzner crashed on that hell hole of a moon, just three of them survived. He left them as soon as they hit civilization so the bounty on him wouldn't hurt them. And now... 

They kept the fighters on a short leash, but the servants had more range if not freedom. And he need all the intel he could gather. She had some moves, he could teach her more. This could work out.

The shower was running when Riddick came in, but she was sitting on the toilet. She looked up for a moment then went back to watching the water hit the wall. 

"Go ahead," he tilted his head at the shower. "Nobody is watching." He'd used a shiv made from a drawer runner to tear out the camera before they'd cleaned him out. 

"If I don't will you rape me again?" She asked

"Don't know why your panties are in a bunch, they're still on." 

"That is a technicality." She bit off each syllable and spat it on the floor. 

"Woman..." He ground his teeth "Monroe would have done it. He'd still be fucking you, with a club if he couldn't get it up," he said, "Is that what you want?"

"What I want is to not be here." She stood up and got in his face as best she could. Her nose only came up to his Adam's apple. "To not have some stranger pin me down and assault me. And most of all I don't want to be told that it was for my own good. You will never break me. Every time you try it will be recorded and there will be a reckoning. You can count on that."

She sounded so serious, like she thought she could follow through. It was absurd. "What's a grum worm?" he asked an absurd question in reply.

She blinked but answered, "Intestinal parasite, causes diarrhea, anemia and impotence." She deflated and sat back down, "It's passed by fecal oral contamination." She pulled her feet up and huddled there on the shitter.

"What's your name."

"Michaela Cotton." 

"Nice to meet you Mike." He held out his hand, "I'm Richard B. Riddick."

"The pleasure is all yours Dick." She ignored it.

"Michaela." H took a breath then let it out slowly. "I fucked up, and got caught. They said it was this or get ghosted. So I signed on the dotted line before I knew what I was in for. Now to get out, I need help." And fuck but that cost him to say that. "I need somebody who can move around some. I need information before I can figure out a plan."

"So you expect me to act like the good little victim playing nice and scurry around gathering your crumbs? And what? You promise to refrain from raping me?"

Time for a down payment, "Stand up and give me your hands, please," he added when she hesitated. "If you ever get in this sorta jam again, don't fight. Smile, either reach up," he put her hands on his face like a caress, "and gouge out the fucker's eyes or go down and rip off his balls." He did NOT demonstrate that move. 

She moved her thumb to the bone under his eye, "I don't think I can do that."

"Gouge out an eye?"

"Smile." She pulled back her hands.

He nodded, "Think about it." He left her to shower or not.

The screw had come through with the clothes and ice pack so he tossed them in to Michaela. Then he slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor with his knees up. He had always thought if he didn't actually stick his dick in without asking first he was on the side of the angels. He thought that if she knew he was trying to protect her... Now he wasn't so sure and he was locked in a single room with a guilty conscience and a woman that hated him. Okay not one room, she could barricade the head and leave him with no place to pee.

Michaela came out wearing a pink baby doll nightie over her skirt. She had set her nose and was holding the ice pack on it very tenderly. 

"Fucking screws," Riddick shook his head and climbed to his feet. "I'd give you something for pain, if I had any. Get some sleep."

The head was still steamy and he stood in front of the sink taking a very long time to brush his teeth. Images and sensations kept sneaking up on him. The feel of her hands on his face, the way she'd looked at him at dinner, the glimpse of her tits and the warmth of her body under his. Then there was that last look of hate and rage and the blood would drain right back out of his cock.

He looked at the man in the mirror. "Maybe she would've hooked up with you to keep the wolves at bay, but that's all. No big loss." It tasted like a lie.

He'd hoped that she would be asleep by the time he got out. She was huddled against the wall and the hitch in her breathing told him that she was trying to keep silent as she cried. He would have left her alone but the floor was too cold to sleep on. He stripped down to briefs and tank top before sliding in next to her. He turned so they were back to back.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

  
  


The window was a rectangle of grey in the pitch black room when Michaela finally gave up trying to sleep. The floor was frigid and she bit her lip as she crawled out of the bed. Riddick stirred and stretched to take up the two foot wide stripe she’d been compressed into. She rolled her shoulders as she tip toed across the room. 

The world on the other side of the wire reinforced glass was a soft, pillowy blue. Snow rippled across the yard and filled in the holes of the chain link fence. In the distance the snow clung to the trees that obscured the sky. 

One winter in the Northern Islands of Avaiki was enough to convince her to hurry home to the Equatorial Seas. The cold, the styrofoam sound of walking in snow– she might carry both Viking and Maori genes but she knew which ones were dominate. Curly black hair, brown eyes and get me out of the snow! 

Two guards patrolled the yard leaving a trail that a half-blind four-year-old could follow. Michaela glanced at the man in the bed. She could see his point about needing better intelligence before planning an escape. 

"Time," thought Michaela, "to stop reacting and to start thinking." She'd been running on instinct since coming out of cryosleep two days before. Instinct wasn't going to be enough. 

The room lights clicked on in obedience to some outside control. Riddick groaned and swore as he flung one arm over his eyes and the other hand groped along the floor next to the mattress. He found and slapped on a pair of welding goggles before rolling out of the bed. 

Hypersensitivity to light– it meant something, but Michaela couldn’t remember what. She stashed the fact in her memory. Nothing about him made sense. He should be a textbook power assertive rapist. He was athletic, domineering and used to violence. He had over powered her, threatened to rape her and then... didn't.  He didn't penetrate her, he didn't climax– she didn't think he even managed an erection. A power assertive rapist would have ramped up the violence.

Instead, he just acted like he had done what he wanted to, like they were in it, what ever it was, together. That was the defining trait of a power reassurance rapist, but his personality– she shook her head imperceptibly. Maybe she wasn’t looking at this the right way. 

Outside, it started to snow. 

Riddick came back from the toilet and stood behind her. “Guard’ll be here soon.” The heat from his body soaked through the flimsy top even as his nearness chilled her.  “When he comes, go with him. Do what you’re told and keep you head down, eyes open and mouth shut.”

She glared at him over her shoulder, her mouth tight and eyes narrowed. “Take that and-”

“This ain’t the day.” He turned her around. “All fighting will get you is fucked and dead. Understand?”

When she raised her hands to push back he grabbed her wrists and pinned them to the wall. 

“Say it. This ain’t the day.” He leaned in and she knew in her gut that he was staring into her eyes. 

“This isn’t the day,” she allowed.

“Good.” He leaned back, giving her some small relief. “Watch out for the guards. They will try to mind fuck you until you’re on your knees sucking dick for the privilege of clean up their shit stains.”

“But I should trust you?”

“I didn’t throw you in a cage to get fucked like an animal.”

“Says the animal.” She regretted it almost as soon as it was said. The grip on her wrists tightened and his mouth thinned until is was a razor’s slash thick.

Whatever was coming was forestalled by the door slamming open. “Good morning, bitch. Well well well, Riddick, the slag is on her feet. You must be getting soft.”

Riddick spoke calmly. “Three kinds in the slam: skells.” He let her go, and pointed his thumb at himself. “Slags.” A forefinger jabbed her. “And mother fucking screws.” He nodded at the guard, then leaned in until his mouth was almost touching her ear. “Better to be an animal.”

He slid his arm behind her shoulders and turned her towards the door. 

The guard leered at her, staring at the bow between her breasts. She stared back. He’d been one of the men that brought her here, unless there were two fish-belly white guys with kwepie doll hair cuts and mean blue eyes. 

At the doorway Riddick pulled her close. “Remember: head down, eyes open, and stay alive.” He kissed her tenderly before letting her go. 

She had gone a step past the guard when, snake-fast, Riddick grabbed the guard’s shirt front and snarled, “She comes back as-is or I cut out your motherfucking spleen.”

The guard twisted sideways and lashed out with his baton. It hit Riddick full force across his stomach. Michaela winced at the sound but Riddick absorbed the blow with a grunt and a feral bearing of teeth. 

Michaela ducked out the door and hoped the guard would follow her instead of beating Riddick. She was supposed to stay out of trouble while Riddick assaulted guards? Obviously she didn’t know all the rules to the game. 

The guard drew back his baton and feinted another strike, but Riddick grinned and stepped back into the cell. The door slammed shut and the guard turned to Michaela. 

“Get moving.” He jabbed her with his baton and drove her down the hall. 

He waved open another door and a good looking man in his early twenties sauntered out. He had a skimmed-milk completion that showed the rings under his eyes and chin-length sandy-brown hair that had a mind of its own.

“Get in line, pillow biter.” The guard shoved him into Michaela.

“Sorry.” He brushed the hair out of his eyes and gave Michaela a wry smile. 

“In front, Markham. She hasn’t cottoned onto the routine yet.” The guard snickered at his own joke. 

“Yes, Officer Lee.” Markham moved around Michaela. He mouthed something when his back was to the guard, but Michaela didn’t catch it. 

They stopped at two more doors and two more women joined the parade: a buxom redhead with swollen lips, and a pink-haired waif who could have passed for a teen except for the blank look on her face. They moved like they hadn’t gotten any more sleep than she had. 

They didn’t talk to each other or to the guard, just shuffled into line and followed Markham down the hall. Michaela kept her head down and followed their example, while at the same time watching everything. 

*****

  


Riddick finished tying his boot as the doors slammed open again. 

“Gladiators!” The fat fuck of a trainer who called himself Lanista bellowed from the center of the corridor. “Gladiators, come forth!”

Riddick flipped a finger at the door but fell in like a good little soldier. Ten men stood in front of their cells as Lanista paced up and down the hall, cradling a wooden sword like a baby.

The skell across from Riddick scratched his balls when he thought Lanista wasn’t looking. He wasn’t sneaky enough. The sword smacked down on the skell’s forearm.

“Respect, Mr. Smith,” said Lanista. “Show your training some respect and I won’t knock your dick clean off.” Somebody down the line snickered. Smith was a punk. The only reason the wolves hadn’t ridden his ass was that there was real pussy to be had. Riddick figured that when the fights got started Smith would be served up as an appetizer, something to get the punters hot and bothered. Give ‘em a taste of blood.

“Left face.” 

Riddick turn to face the guard at the blind end of the corridor. The men on his side of the hall would have to march down the hall, around the end and back up. It added, for the guy marching drag, a whole 20 meters. That and the cold seeping through the outside wall made it the bad side of the hall, but Riddick liked the view. 

Lanista lead them out of the cell block past another armed guard.  Another guard looking all too bright-eyed and bushy-fucking-tailed.  Riddick caught himself counting the cameras in the stair well again: one wide angle at each landing and another over every door. Four floors meant eight cameras that he could see, maybe more. It made Riddick homesick for the crappy triple max slams he’d been in: places where the guards were strung out shitheads one whole step up the social ladder from the skells they were guarding, slams where they let the environment kill you so they could skimp on real security. The accommodations were nicer here, but it was a lot harder to get a rabbit pardon. Given a choice, he’d trade the private room for an unwatched corner on the outer wall. 

At the final landing, one floor above ground level if space was behaving the way Riddick thought it should, the line of fighters filed in to the training gym and formed up on the fight mats. 

Lanista motioned to his assistant. “Get them warmed up. A nice jog around the room.”

“Follow me.” The assistant took off around the edge of the gym.

There were mutters in the ranks, mopes that thought his monkey see monkey do routine was designed to make them look like idiots. He’d jog for a bit them jump up and slap a spot on the wall or zig zag around the weight machines and heaven help the fighter that failed to follow the leader. 

Riddick kinda liked it. At least he had to admit Lanista junior was good at getting the blood flowing to all the extremities. Got the brain warmed up, too, as you tried to guess what batshit crazy thing he was going to do next in the name of broken-field running. 

Like... jump up and dive head first into a forward roll. Yamashiro, the ex sumo, swore in Japanese and managed a shoulder roll, but not the roll up onto his feet. In fact, only about half of them made it all the way back to standing. Junior raced on. 

Ten laps- about three kilometers- later most of the fighters were breathing heavy, but not winded, and Junior brought them back to the center of the room for Lanista to look over. Some he sent off to the work on the weights, others to the ring to work on technique. Riddick and couple of others were sent to the treadmills, and ordered to run until they were dead.

Riddick set his machine for a brisk hill run and set off. He could have picked out an environment, a fake world to pretend to run through, but it would have blocked out his view of the room. And he wouldn’t want to miss anything. Like, say, that confab going on by the free weights.  

Deiter Monroe, the fucking queen of the cell block, was doing arm curls while his pet guard filled him in on all the latest gossip. He wasn’t liking what he heard if the killer glares coming Riddick’s way were any indication. And his moon-faced boy, Raduski, was swelling up like a spine puffer. 

Riddick shrugged. He’d find out sooner or later. It wasn’t like those two had any concept of keeping their mouths shut. If they were looking for a fight- well, he’d make sure it was on his terms. 

Fifteen minutes and six klicks later, Lanista ambled up to Riddick’s treadmill. “You can do better than that.” He up the pace.

“Fuck!” Riddick skipped a step before finding his feet again. A klick rolled by and Riddick was starting to feel it. He was having to breathe deeper, but nothing he couldn’t handle.

Another half a klick and Lanista upped the speed again. “More, Mr. Riddick. Everything.”

Soon he was straining to breathe. The fucker had turned the speed up to thirty kph. Another klick and a stitch was stabbing him in the liver. Two more and his lungs were made of fire. 

“Faster.” That damn wood sword poked him in the back. When he got off this fucking thing he was going to shove it up Lanista’s ass. But he ran faster. Thirty-five kph and his legs felt like jelly as one more klick went past. He’d run this fast once or twice, for a few hundred meters, but never so long. Ten klicks on top of the three around the room. Ten point two- his heart felt too big for his chest- ten point five- he stopped thinking about murder, just surviving. Ten point seven- he stopped thinking. 

At ten point eight clicks his legs gave out and his feet were swept out from under him. His chin hit the console and he lost some skin as his elbows hit the side of the treadmill, just before he slammed down on the floor. 

Almost eleven klicks in less than twenty minutes. Lanista stood over him with a ghost of a self satisfied smile. 

“You see?”

Riddick rolled to his feet and lunged at Lanista. Legs held him up just long enough to get his hands to the fucker’s neck. And he grabbed air. 

Lanista delivered the coup-de-fucking-gras by kneeling in the middle of Riddick’s back and throttling him with the sword. That and the sound of a dozen cattle prods winding up kept Riddick on the floor.

“You have more potential than the rest of them combined. You can do great things... if you listen to me.” He got up and said, “Go kill a heavy bag to cool down. Then we’ll start your training.”


	3. Chapter 3

Once, out in the back of the beyond, Riddick had a chance to play pool on an antique table. The real deal; green felt stretched over a chunk of slate, hard plastic balls and wood cues. He got to enjoy watching the holo-pool hustlers in his squad lose their lunch money to the table’s owner.

Then it was his turn. The old guy cleaned his clock. The only reason he could claim to have done any better was that he knew not to bet more than he could afford. There were too many fine variables in how the felt lay or where the cue hit the ball; the sort of stuff the old man had spent years mastering.

Still, Riddick found he liked it better than holo-pool. Something about the physical finesse and mental agility it required. And the way a pool cue could be turned into a weapon at a moment’s notice.

Peaches acted like she’d’ve liked a nice maple cue instead of a flimsy holo-wand right about now. Riddick wasn’t sure if she was working the table or Jones, either way she was working hard. All the girls were.

They were bright and eager and just a hair too tightly wound. They smiled and laughed and flinched just a little every time the door opened. One was even making a play for the bigger of the Colts, and Riddick was pretty sure he was more into boys than girls.

Mike walked in, looked around then came straight at him. She was wearing something slinky that clung to her curves and displayed a long length of thigh with each step. Okay maybe it was a little loose around the chest, but what did he know about fashion? He couldn't even tell you for sure what color it was through his welding glasses. All he knew what it showed off her body and made the bruises on her face than much more obscene.

She sat down sideways on the couch so her bare knee was up against his thigh, then leaned across him and helped herself to his beer.

“Smart people are afraid of me,” he said.

“Desperation can make intelligent people do risking things.” She sucked on the straw, then made a face. “And I am desperate enough to drink this.”

“What’s wrong with Happy Beer?” Other than it tasted like watered down sugar and barely raised a buzz.

"Beer," she said, "has hops and malts and some grain like wheat or oats or even rice. But most importantly it's made by happy little yeasts that die and go to heaven so we can get looped."

"The fuck you say."

"I say." She lifted the container. "And it comes in bottles, not squeeze pouches. That is some chemists' idea of liquid mind control and it fails at that."

"It's better than pruno," he said. He stretched his arm along the back of the couch and caressed a lock of her hair.

Mike turned away. "What's pruno?"

"Shit they make in the slam. With fucking pissed off yeasts that went to hell and will take you with them." He took back the beer and drained it. “What’s going on?” He inclined his head towards the room a touch.

She looked around then lowered her head and voice. “The General Manager- does he have a name? He wasn’t supposed to give me to you.”

“Says who?”

“Mrs. Henderson. She’s the madame here, makes up the rules, schedules the ‘dates’ and such.” She folded in on herself. “Apparently one of the rules is that Monroe gets the noncompliant women for...and now he’s upset.”

Riddick stood up and held out his hand. “Come on.”

Mike wrinkled her brow but took his hand. “Where are we going?”

“Back to the cell. Monroe is a fucking merc. Here voluntarily.” He draped his arm over her shoulders. “In a normal slam I’d tell him to fuck off, but in a normal slam we would've gone tit to tit by now anyways.”

Monroe was hanging out in the hall, his pack of hyenas sniggering at his jokes. He saw them, his eyes sliding from Riddick to Mike and back. He gave a little smile and started towards them.

Four to one, and a one of the four, a guard. The sort of odds Monroe would favor. Riddick loosened his shoulders and dropped  
Mike’s hand. He felt her move a little back and to the side, where she wouldn’t be in his way. Or, it occurred to him, he wouldn’t be in hers.

Maybe-

“Where are you taking me?” The door at the far end of the hall opened as a guard frog marched a blonde through.  
She saw the crowd and started to pull back, but the guard was expecting it. 

“Got something for you, Monroe.” 

Monroe glanced backwards. “Put her in the crib.”

“The what?” Blondy was wriggling for all she was worth but the screw had her upper arm around her ear. “Michaela!”

Fuck, thought Riddick as Mike hissed and made a half a move in the other woman’s direction.

“Michaela, what’s going on? Where are we? Nobody will-” the door cut her off and Monroe’s pet screw remembered that he was supposed to be working.

“You have business here, Riddick?” He elbowed his way to the front of the group.

“Just heading back to my cell.” He grabbed Mike’s arm and steered her away round the knot of men. 

They made kissing noises at her and Riddick pulled her closer. “Do not stir up shit.”

“They are going-”

“Shut up and walk.”

“I have to do something.” Mike pulled against his grasp.

“Walk.” There would be bruises from his fingers on her arm. He’d break it if that’s what it took.

*****  
Riddick didn’t let go of her until there was a locked door between them and the obscenity happening behind them. Michaela rounded on him hand fisted and half raised. But he pushed her against the wall.

“Cameras, behind me and over your head. Keep a fucking lid on it.” He leaned in hard, squeezing the air from her chest.

“I am coming to hate you,” she said, but she forced her muscles to relax. “Do you have any idea what they are going to do to her?”

“She’ll live.” He wrapped his arm around her waist and continued down the hall, but he kept her against the wall. “Cause trouble and she won’t.”

Grudgingly she let him haul her back to the cell. “You don’t know she’ll survive.”

“No percentage in fucking her to death.” 

The cell opened for them, but she could hear the buzz and click of the lock latching after the door closed. Changes had been made since the morning, a low dresser was up against one wall next to two tubs of clothes and a real bed stood under the window. 

Michaela took off her heels and tossed them in the general direction of the dresser before flopping on the bed. 

Riddick grumbled under his breath, straightened out her shoes and brought her one of the tubs. “What’s Blondy to you anyways?” 

Clean clothes, if you could call little bits of cloth held together by lace clothes. She picked up a pair of panties. According to the label they should fit, but she would have to try them on to be sure. 

“She your sister, girlfriend, homie? What?” he asked again.

“Fellow human being.” The bra was hot pink and looked like it would itch.

“Didn’t see you ready to fly to anybody else’s rescue.” He added a shirt to a very neat stack.

“I spent a short eternity in a ‘port waiting room with her.” There was entirely too much pink in the tub. Michaela concentrated on the indignity of clothes that clashed with her face to block out the images her hind brain kept feeding her. “Long enough to find out that she’s twenty-five, married less than a year, just got a big promotion and wants to have kids.”

“What she do to end up here?”

“Nothing! Absolutely nothing, you pox tongued fish chum.” She picked up her pile of underwear, stomped over to slam it in a drawer. “She didn’t do anything. And neither did I.” 

“Slam’s full of wrongfully convicted skells.”

“To be wrongfully convicted you have to have been convicted. We weren’t. Not convicted or tried, or charged or arrested. And if Billy Kale has done anything worse than shoplift a candy bar I will... will...” She couldn’t think of anything drastic enough to convey how outrageous that was.

“Okay. I’ll bite. How the hell did you end up here?” Riddick leaned against the wall arms crossed, his face like a stone wall.

“We went into cryo-sleep in Blackwater City expecting to wake up back home.” She rubbed her temples, “Instead we came out here. I tried to hack the lock and earned this.” She brushed her fingers over her split lip. “Then the cook came down to the holding cell and said he needed extra servers so off we went.”

Riddick stood there, not moving, not saying anything. Did he believe her or was he planning how to be rid of her?

Or was he mulling over her story, trying to make sense of it? Michaela knew it sounded well and truly insane. 

“How many passengers?”

“Just us, I think. It was a Banque Du Monde courrier, I’m an accountant, she’s a hardware engineer.” 

“What else was on the ship?” He grew more animated as he started to worry the problem apart. She wondered if he knew his lips moved just a little as he thought. Too bad he was, according to rumor, a sociopathic murderer who’d kill you if it became expedient. 

“They don’t tell accountants things like that. But if you want my best guess, government forms, things that require a hard signature. Nothing with a market value.”

“Then one of you pissed off somebody.”

“I have considered that, thank you.” And she nursed a sick feeling she knew who and why- but... “This is so complicated. If I wanted to get rid of somebody about to go in Cryo-sleep I’d just mess with the chemistry.”

“It’s harder than you think. Gotta hack the computer or get a chance to swap out the antifreeze. Takes time. Gotta have somebody inside.” He sat down next to her. 

“And ‘jacking a ship out of the space lanes is easier?” 

“Not if you can just tell it to land someplace and off load some cargo.” He bounced a little then bent to untie his boots. “At least the bed don’t squeak.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Michaela swept the clothes back into the basket and took them to the dresser. She shoved them into drawers, the lacy and shear shirts, the too short skirts and the torture devices disguised as bras. “I’m borrowing one of you tee shirts.” She’d rather be hogtied than wear what passed for a night gown.

“Once the lights are out the screws won’t be able to tell what we’re doing if the bed don’t squeak.”

She glowered at him. “Or not doing.”

“Or not.” He turned down the lights.

*****


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so short and was so long in coming. I'm trying to work out a plot hole and it's going slow...

They called themselves the Dating Pool. They did not, Jeb told Michaela, turn tricks, they went on dates and pretended that it was consensual, mutually satisfying and face saving. They all knew what would happen if they failed to please their dates. If they had forgotten, last night’s events were a reminder. 

Michaela had been gone by the time Monroe was done. She didn’t get to see Billy carried out of the room, but some of the others had. She detected a decided frostiness to the room.

"Same Shit, different day." Jeb muttered out the side of his mouth as Henderson passed out work assignments. He was the only one willing to talk to her today. And she wasn’t surprised to find that they were paired or that they were assigned to clean the cribs.

"And so it's a beautiful day here at the Arena, a perfect day for a round of guess the sheet stain." Jeb planted his hands on his hips and looked up and down the cell block. "What's your bet, Mike, what's going to be the favorite stain this week? Come? Skid marks or plain old stinky sweat?"

“All three?” There were hourly hotels on Aviaki, places you didn’t want to go unless your vaccinations were all up to date. She hadn’t had the misfortune to work in one, but she knew somebody had to change the sheets. “Ah the dignity of honest work.”

“Are you high?” Jeb opened the first door. 

“Lying to myself.” The room was small, maybe two and a half meters wide and four deep, it was dominated by a circular bed under a mirrored ceiling. Maybe it looked enticing when the lights were low, with them all the way on it was just tawdry.  
And it smelled of cannabis. “You can have puha here?”

“What?” Jeb stuck his head in. “Sweet, maybe if we breathe deep the rest of the hall won’t be so bad.”

“With my luck it will be just enough to give me a headache.” 

They worked their way down the row of rooms, the headache developing as scheduled. most of the rooms were variations on a theme of ‘could be sexy if you squint’ and they all stank of musk and sweat. After they were cleaned they stank of musk, sweat and disinfectant. 

The last room was larger than the others and it’s use was explicitly laid out. The walls were decorated with weapons and reproductions of ancient bondage scenes. A woman wrapped in ropes in one, stretched out and displayed in another, in a third she was hung with her hands bound to a wicked looking hook. 

“Billy must have been terrified.” Michaela shuddered. 

Jeb scowled. "I'm never so glad to be a boy as when Monroe starts prowling around. My guys aren't imaginative and I am fine with that."

A brass bed stood in the middle of the room. Michaela grabbed the top sheet and pulled it back. The center third of the bottom sheet was stiff with dried blood and semen. 

"How is she still alive?" Jeb was looking a little green.

"An average woman has five and a half litters of blood, and you can lose a quarter of your blood and walk away." Michaela measured the big stain with her hand; two spans wide, three long. There were other smears and transfer prints from the struggle. She fixed all in her mind then stripped away the sheet. "He would know that I was going to be assigned to cleaning, wouldn't he?"

"Yeah?" 

"Dread and despair- not this time,” she murmured

"What are you thinking?" Jeb's was looking at her sideways, the whites showing around his irises.

“Trying to remember something,” she muttered. “Something my gran used to say- Vengeance is never enough, but it’ll do for a start.”

"I'll get out of your way then." Jeb said while backing out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.  
> I went with an original character because there is only four canon characters alive at this point in the canon.  
> Let me know what you think. Please.


End file.
